Seed Media Group: Blog

Saturday, February 20, 2010 • Noted • by Eva Wisten • #

Transdisciplinary design & and its friends

Parsons The New School for Design is launching a Masters of Fine Arts program in Transdisciplinary Design in the fall. Jamer Hunt, chair of Urban and Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons who is directing the program, recently took to the streets of New York to ask people if they could explain what transdisciplinary design actually means. In the end, he happens upon a certain someone at the Museum of Modern Art who can tell us exactly…

Leading up to the launch of the new program, Parson’s is arranging a lecture series that’s exploring the increasingly expanded role of the designer:

From Hunt’s Transdisciplinary blog:

“Designers are rethinking their practices as they increasingly confront a world in which the complexity and interconnectedness of its people, infrastructures, networks, and economies challenges traditional, disciplinary responses. Designers are increasingly designing businesses, services, experiences, policies, and even emergent social forms; and along the way they are inventing new methods, new tools, and new ways of conceiving design.”

This is the line-up of speakers:

Tuesday, February 23, 6-8 pm
Yochai Benkler, professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard and Anna Valtonen, rector of the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden on:

How are networks—global, immediate, and decentralized—changing the way we live, work and design? What are the possibilities and challenges of working and living in an always on, always connected global marketplace? And how can we leverage the power of these networks to transform lives for the better?

Thursday, March 25, 6-8 pm
March 25, Andrew Blauvelt, design director and curator at the Walker Art Center in conversation with eating designer Marije Vogelzang, Principal, Proef and Studio Marije Vogelzang in Amsterdam on:

What are the pressures on design consultancies and businesses as the rules of the game are shifting in unpredictable ways? How are design-led businesses succeeding at defining new territories to work in and new ways of operating?

April 6, Natalie Jeremijenko, Professor of Visual Arts at New York University and Nigel Snoad, Lead Researcher, Microsoft Humanitarian Systems on

Can design play a role in governmental and non-governmental delivery of things like infrastructure, education, and health care? What kinds of alliances and collaborations are forming to bring design-led practices into large scale social and technological services?

Venue: Theresa Lang Student & Community Center, Arnhold Hall, The New School 55 West 13th Street, New York
The event is free and open to the public